Your friendly neighbourhood study buddy...

Just tune this one out if it bores you - this is me studying. What better way to remember than by writing it on my blog!

SYNCRETISM
Syncretism is the process of old meanings being ascribed to new elements or by which new values change the cultural significance of old forms.

In music terms - the combining of elements from different types of music to create new styles of music.

Fixed traditions: A fixed tradition is a musical convention or language that never changes. Eg: Organum (what the heck is that?), Japanese court music, 12 bar blues.

Mobile traditions: A mobile tradition is a musical convention or language that is continually searching for new forms of expression through sound, context or something else......oh yeah, ways of playing. Eg: Jazz, classical music, minimalism.

MINIMALISM
Composers: Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Phillip Glass, Mark whathisname - Pollard, and Matthew Hindson.

Characteristics of minimalism: repetition, phase shifting and polyrhythms. (Phase shifting is lining up tape loops and playing them in unison, then letting them get out of phase with each other)

And it began in the USA in the 1960's, associated with the minimalist art movement, and was a reaction against modernism. Minimalism is tonal and has rhythmic regularity (modernism is atonal and rhythmically irregular). And it's all about reduction to the essential elements.

PROGRAMMATIC MUSIC

Meaning can be ascribed to music.
1) Meaning through association. (Gamelan music uses the pentatonic scale. Therefore the pentatonic scale can be associated with exotic/foreign music)
2) Meaning through characteristic resemblance or similarity with a physical object or reality
(I'm not sure what they mean by this. An example of this is the 'Great White Shark Theme' from Jaws - I assume they mean that it sounds like a great white shark???? meh)
3) Meaning through relationship with a physical experience or gesture (eg: an increase or decrease in pulse correlates with a change in heart rate and emotional state. Also, some melodies or rhythms can be representative of physical states such as running, jumping, falling.)
4) Meaning through correlation with a process or shape (eg music that expands/contracts in texture, register, range or speed can be equated with growth or decay. Dynamics can create spatial relationships - a quiet sound may be associated with an object that is far away - a sound increasing in loudness may be associated with an object that is coming closer)

Programmatic composers:
Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique
Debussy - La Mer, the Sunken Cathedral
Smetana - the Moldau (I am so OVER it)
Stravinsky - the Rite of Spring

SOUND MASS
A sonic event where so much is happening that all sounds blur into a massive wall of timbre - detail is lost and we experience a sense of mass.

Achieved through 1) Fusing - blending the sounds 2) Multiplicity - multiplying the sounds to form a large scale mass or 3) micropolyphony - so much polyphony that the sounds is blurred.

Sound mass can occur in homogenous or heterogenous textures (we'll get to that in a minute - next post!). Edgar Varese is associated with 'sound mass'. What a good place to start talking about......

MUSIQUE CONCRETE
(Concrete music)

Electronic composition - editing natural and industrial sounds together to form a soundscape. 1940s- 50s.

Composers:
Edgar Varese
Milton Babbitt
John Cage
Stockhausen (1960s)
Pierre Schafer

Right, I'm off to learn about texture, extended instrumental technique, dynamics, timbre, pacing and harmony. (Maybe some other stuff too.)

Hope this helps if you have a music exam :-p